If you’re a WordPress WebPro or Freelance that is building sites for your clients you need to learn the technical stuff to the point that you can either do it or at the very least have an intelligent conversation with someone else about it.
Look, if you get paid to build WordPress websites, but don’t know what FTP is or how to access a database (or that WordPress uses a database), you shouldn’t be taking peoples money!!
Where is this coming from?
There has not been a week that has gone by in the last year that I have not spoken to a WebPro, website designer, WordPress freelancer, whatever you want to call them, that could not understand the technical side of hosting, migration, database management, FTP access, manual WordPress install, along with a list of other things.
To add to the frustration, some of these people where actually charging their clients for hosting.
Which means they were simply paying for a shared server at a company like GoDaddy and craming all their clients on that one account, but still, if you’re going to charge people for a service you better know how to manage that business, or pay someone that does.
If you want to know how to grow a really profitable hosting business that generates residual income, click here!
Let me just say again, you don’t have to know how to do all of these technical things, but you should at least understand them and then have a contractor or employee that does have the skill so they can actually do it for you.
How do you learn?
In my experience, the best class room is out in the trenches. Just start breaking shit and try to fix it!
That’s what I did! I relied (and some times still do) on Google for the answers I need when I started. I had never used FTP or opened a database before. And now I do those things every day.
Buy a cheap hosting plan from some company and start playing with it. Call their support and start asking questions.
Go to Lynda.com or YouTube.com and start looking for video tutorials that can teach you the steps.
If there is one thing I know, more knowing, more understanding will never keep you from succeeding.
It’s incredible how empowering having the skills and understanding the tech stuff is.
Take some time and teach yourself some new skills.
If you need a dev on call who can help you with these things, you can contact me any time.
Develop the skills or hire a technician?
There are pros and cons to both of these options.
However, the first thing you need to know is which one has the higher profits. You always want to be thinking of your bottom line. That is if you’re in business to make money ;-).
For example, I have a client that hasn’t really learned (and doesn’t really care to) the technical stuff. She knows how to use FTP, but doesn’t really know how to manage her host and setup SSL certificates, migrate sites and do several other similar things.
In her case, it makes more since financially to submit a ticket for me to complete these specific tasks. I usually get a couple request from her a month.
If you’re a one man/woman shop and you don’t really have the budget to hire someone else, then you should take a couple hours a week to teach yourself some new skills.
The trick is to understand it, and then leverage existing tools to make it easier for you to accomplish the tasks.
As an example, the easies way to do a migration is with ManageWP. That is how I do all of my migrations. The success rate is 99.9% and it take like 10 minutes.
Additionally, if you have a hacked website you’re dealing with, the best thing to do is let a trained expert deal with it. Use a company like Sucuri or WP Buffs to do the clean up for you.
You charge your client a little more then those companies charge you and everyone is happy! They do the work and you look like the hero.
Your Next Steps
You can take some courses at one of the links above or join Code School but you could also hire me! Let me coach you.
I can help you setup your business right and learn the things you need to be more successful.
We can start with a quick chat about your needs and work out a strategy for working together. Talk soon!